Illegal to capture your own rainwater? I can see needing a permit to dig a well, but that takes the cake. I guess I'll stay here in the east where we can do what we want - they just tax the heck out of us.

InspectorD - You could always build a dog house/shed like building for it and paint the roof with flat black paint and allow the sun to heat the dog house cover, keeping the water from freezing in the cold. I have not done this, but depending on how much $ you want to put into free water... not sure if this works for you.

I live in the northeast..like you.
It all depends on the weather. I am thinking of installing a barrel I can put in the basement, then fill when I am home.
Figure 1 inch of rain ,,about 5 minutes,, on a 1500 sq foot roof...gives about 80 gallons. I think that's enough.
Don't ask how I got that figure...I have books....and tables....and too much info...

I think the nor'easter was invented in CT.
We don't really see 1 inch in 5 min all the time...but it has come close.
The diverters are a must have. I just want to collect as much water in a barrell as possible. The thing is I have well water, and to pump it out of the well costs electricity. Rain water is free, and collected for your toilets and gardening at some point may be the future.
I know you need more separate plumbing for that,,,but that's the easy part. The hard part is finding the place to put a 50 gallon, 400lb barrel in the house...above the toilets for gravity feed. Where they won't freeze in winter. When does it become feasible to do all this in the northeast? That is my homework...
Maybe I'll just keep pa yin the electric co.

What you can do is have a tank in your basement then pump the water up another tank in your attic which will then supply water pressure to your house..

To get water up to your attic you use a Hydraulic Ram Pump it uses the water pressure of the water falling water from your down spout to pump water up to the attic. They can be expensive but i found a guide to make a homemade Hydraulic Ram Pump using normal pressure plumbing supplies.

They are not very efficient about 25% so will need will need to make sure you have a good overflow... It can also be rigged up to flow directly from the down spouts to the attic and would be alot more efficient but there would be trapped water to freeze.

You can rig a toilet fill to add well water to your attic tank if your water supply gets to low..

A pump that uses your well water pressure might work too like for basement sump pumps

I Personally don't think its worth the effort and don't think it would ever pay for it self especially with well water.. but it seems like a fun and green project.

Homepower is a great magazine...plenty of off grid stuff.
I know about the rams, the headfall from the gutter is to low a number to get water up to the attic.
The other issue is the water freezing in the exterior attic winter air.
I'm thinkin I need to go outside the box on this...and just jump to a solar pump or weatherized outbuilding,,,like was suggested earlier.
Thanks...keep thinkin...

Im glad I saw this discussion as I still try and capture rainwater now its a pretty good thing to do actually and we tend to get a pretty heavy rainfall here to, if anyone is still interested in some tips there is an article here about capturing rainwater in your hard which should help you out How to Capture Rainwater in Your Yard

i just started working on this a couple days back. i caught a deal on some big tanks off craigs list if i brought all three. i'm going to hook up two to work together and can't really see filling them up so i should get prettymuch everything that comes down the spout they're hooked to.

my main purpose is keeping my little artificial pond project full. i have drainage tubes off one side of my garage that drain into the pond when it rains, and i hope to use the tanks on the other side of the garage to hold water for bettween rains. i'm also hearing/reading that if i try to put fish in my pond rain water will be better than tap water for topping it up.

been finding articles on pretty elaborate set ups, so i'm finding pieces and slowly working out the details (as much be able to afford some of the tricky bits of it, along with just figuring out how to do it well). hope to have it compleatly set up by spring at the latest.